Paddy Power to axe hundreds of professional roles in Ireland
It is understood that IT professionals are among those affected, as well as human resource and customer service staff.
None of the company’s retail stores will be affected by the job losses, however. The newly combined bookmakers business — Paddy Power Betfair — is said to be targeting areas of overlap between the two former rivals while also looking to consolidate its operations into a single location in both Ireland and the UK.
Consequently, the 300 or so Irish jobs will be shed from its headquarters in Clonskeagh, Co Dublin, while Betfair’s Irish staff are expected to move into the same premises.
Similar action is being taken in the UK where 350 jobs will be lost across many of the same business functions as Ireland. The cuts, expected to be implemented over the coming three months, represent a reduction of close to a quarter in its Clonskeagh-based workforce.
A little over a year ago, Taoiseach Enda Kenny attended an event at Paddy Power HQ to celebrate the company hiring its 5,000th employee.
Approximately half of its 2,750 Irish staff are based in Clonskeagh. Staff were informed of the “restructuring” decision on Monday.
Shares in Paddy Power Betfair were down 1.5% yesterday. One employee, who did not wish to be identified, claimed “the writing had been on the wall” for a while, as departing staff members had not been replaced.
Staff will reportedly be offered four weeks’ pay for every year they have worked at the company in addition to their statutory redundancy.
The merger of Paddy Power and Betfair closed in February, having been first flagged in August 2015.
Andy McCue, the former chief executive of Paddy Power and the chief operating officer of the merged business, unexpectedly announced last month that he would leave the business at the end of April.
